COPLINK National Network

Anaheim, CA "245” assault with deadly weapon against Officer
On July 25, 2008 at 2319 hours, Officer Flanagan ran a license plate in the parking lot of a Motel 6 Hotel. The plate returned as an "armed and dangerous" suspect vehicle used in a 245 against a CHP officer. Officers established a perimeter and used an unmarked vehicle to take point on the suspect vehicle. Officer Flanagan contacted Garden Grove PD, who originated the DOJ stop on the vehicle and obtained more information. The suspect in the 245 was the registered owner of the vehicle. He had led the CHP on a high speed pursuit and may have intentionally collided with a CHP vehicle to escape. We were able to obtain his photo and found that he had several outstanding warrants for his arrest. Officer Flanagan contacted the motel manager and checked the guest roster for the suspect and/or the vehicle with negative results. Using COPLINK from inside the patrol car, we identified several associates of the suspect. We compared the associates' names in COPLINK with the hotel guest roster and located a female's name on both lists. We were able to run her on Vision and located active probation conditions with search and seizure. Entry was made into the motel room and the suspect was located and arrested on the outstanding warrants (including a no bail warrant), possession of narcotics and counterfeit U.S. Currency. Bottom Line: COPLINK saved several man hours of surveillance because, without knowing the room number, we would have waited until he returned to the vehicle. COPLINK also prevented a likely pursuit if we tried to stop him in the vehicle.

Tampa Grand Theft on Christmas Eve
The victim was at a bar and had her purse atop a table. The suspect, a w/m, 5-9 to 5-10, 140-150 lbs, with short sandy hair, walked into the bar and took the victim's purse, which contained property valued at approximately $700.00. The suspect ran from the bar and entered an older model two door red or maroon vehicle (tags identified) and fled the scene. A DHSMV check showed no record found for the vehicle. The investigating officer contacted the victim who advised that she received a phone call from a woman named "Denise" who found her (victim's) stolen purse in her recovered stolen vehicle. Denise stated that her brother used her vehicle on December 24 and that it had been stolen. Denise's phone number was a cell phone, and gave her full name. She stated that her brother was William M., with a DOB of 09/17/1968 or 1969, 5-10, and 160 lbs, with red hair. The investigating officer entered the first three digits of the suspect vehicle's license tag into COPLINK, and received approximately 100 search hits. He located a red 2-door Oldsmobile, accessed the information related to the vehicle and noticed that a Danny Lee M., w/m 09/15/70 was associated with it along with an Information Report. The suspect's mug shot matched the suspect's description, and his name was similar to the name that Denise had given for her brother. A check of the Information report showed that the complainant was a Timothy W. whose wife was Denise W. The investigating officer called Denise at her home, and she admitted to lying about her name to the police. She also indicated that her brother was Danny Lee M. and that he had admitted to her that he had stolen a woman's purse on Christmas Eve. The investigating officer completed a photo line-up and both the victim and witness positively identified Danny Lee M. as the person who stole the purse. Danny Lee M. was arrested and found guilty of grand theft.

Successful Rescue in Tucson
An officer was dispatched to a kidnapping call at an apartment complex. The call was made by a worker at a women's shelter for domestic violence. The caller stated that one of her clients was being held hostage by her ex-boyfriend at an apartment complex near the location. She said that the suspect had threatened to harm the victim’s children if she left him. The worker was able to provide both the victim’s name and the suspect’s name. Other officers responded to the apartment complex location who then determined that the apartment number was unknown. Officers searched the apartment complex for approximately 20 minutes without success. Officers at the station decided to use COPLINK in an attempt to uncover any additional information regarding the suspect. With COPLINK they were able to uncover additional information on the suspect including his prior arrest for domestic violence on the same victim he was currently holding. Further searches with COPLINK discovered several addresses for the suspect. One location was the apartment complex in question, which also included the apartment number. Officers responded to the apartment and located the suspect inside. The ex-girlfriend and her three children were rescued without harm.

Officer Safety in Low Speed Pursuit, Huntington Beach, CA
Officers were involved in a low speed pursuit that started at Riverside, California/SR-1 and terminated in Huntington Beach, CA. Huntington Beach PD assisted by deploying spike strips that caused the pursuit to be resolved safe and quick. COPLINK also played an additional significant role. At the beginning of the pursuit a dispatcher used COPLINK to identify the registered owner of the vehicle and learned that he was considered armed and dangerous. He had been arrested by Irvine PD in April for felon with a handgun. Further inquiries by the dispatcher revealed the RO to have had a previous murder conviction.

Regional Auto Theft in Alaska
An Alaska Bureau of Investigation officer recently investigated a series of stolen vehicles, after finding two vehicles on a property with plates belonging to other vehicles. During a search of the property he was able to confirm two stolen vehicles, a truck and a 4-wheeler through APSIN. Most of these vehicles had their VINs altered, some completely unreadable. He was able to determine several vehicle VINs through alternate vehicle numbers, such as the engine numbers. Additional searching through APSIN however only revealed two of the vehicles had been entered in APSIN as stolen. He then used COPLINK to perform a search for VIN numbers, partial VIN numbers, vehicle descriptions, makes, and models. He was able to identify owners to five of the 4-wheelers, one snow machine, one trailer, and one vehicle with COPLINK searches. The vehicles that have been identified were stolen in Anchorage, Soldotna, Kenai and Wasilla. In many cases the vehicles had not been entered into APSIN, or the wrong or no VIN numbers had been provided to the agency. COPLINK allowed him to identify the owners of these vehicles, where the information would not have been available through DPS computers alone. This investigation resulted in two individuals being arrested and the referral of charges for two minors.

COPLINK Training In Chattanooga, TN
Two of our trainers, Tom Thompson and Bob Torres, were recently in Chattanooga Tennessee for a kick-off training session. A Sergeant attending the class did some queries on a vehicle description that had partial plate information using the “Investigator Logic” method taught by the staff. Varying the colors demanded in the query, the Sergeant was able to identify a suspect vehicle in a series of car busts, locate a residence, and then pulled a photo and identified the subject. There hasn’t been an arrest yet, but we’ll keep up and let you all know.

Homicide Investigation In California
COPLINK, and particularly the California Node, proved to be extremely helpful in locating a suspect in a recent homicide investigation. Detectives learned that a victim of a homicide became involved in an argument with a drug dealer, which lead to the victim's shooting death. Very little information regarding the suspect was available. Detectives knew his nickname and that he recently moved from California, his description, and that he drove a silver smaller-sized truck. Upon running him through the COPLINK California Node, a list of associations was generated. Among those associations was a female later identified as the suspect’s mother and a silver truck registered under the suspect’s name. With this new information in hand a work-up on the female was done and a residence for her was identified in Phoenix. Detectives also then knew what vehicle to look for in their search for the suspect. After some more follow-up work and with the assistance of the Phoenix Police Department, the suspect was located in Phoenix at his mother's residence and was taken into custody. During the investigation phone records for the suspect’s phone turned up another male’s name. This male was contacted and he tried to lead detectives to believe he didn’t know anything about the suspect. A COPLINK associations query against the male showed the suspect and the male were living next door to each other previously in California.

Solved Robbery in Alaska
On 12-3-06, at 1757 hours, Wasilla Police Department received a 911 call from a local gun store, reporting that an armed robbery had just occurred. A male suspect had been in the store a couple hours previous to purchase a magazine for his Smith & Wesson. When the magazine was found to be defective, he was given ammunition as a replacement. The male left the store and returned an hour later complaining that he wanted his money returned and did not want the ammunition. When the suspect had the policy explained, he became combative and was walked out of the store. A couple of minutes later, he barged into the store and quickly walked up on the store owner pointing a gun at his head while threatening to kill him. After leaving with a small amount of cash, the suspect ran across the parking lot to where his vehicle was parked at a local grocery store. A witness in the gun store chased the suspect and got a license plate. The license plate, when ran in APSIN (Alaska Public Safety Information Network), returned to a woman with an address in Anchorage. I ran the woman in ALEISS (Alaska Law Enforcement Information Sharing System) and quickly found her home address matched the registration address on the suspect vehicle. The woman had 25 documents associated with her name but I was searching for a male suspect. In one of her documents, I found the name of her son. Her son was then pulled up in ALEISS and his physical identifiers matched the description of my suspect. A photo lineup was obtained and shown to the witnesses who were in the gun store during the robbery. Four witnesses identified the suspect. A search warrant was served on his residence in Anchorage with the assistance of APD Detectives. The suspect was complacent for a short period of time after the arrest and then angrily escalated, initiating a physical confrontation with APD Detectives and WPD Investigators. He was indicted by a Grand Jury for Robbery First Degree, Assault Third Degree, Assault Fourth Degree, and Resisting Arrest. The suspect was identified within five hours of the robbery and arrested in less than 48 hours because of the valuable information available through ALEISS.

Homicide Investigation in Tucson
Detectives were investigating a homicide which occurred in October, 2006 with very little to go on other than a physical description of the suspect. In December they received information that the suspect in the case had a first name of (Witheld) and that he may have once lived at an address (specific information witheld). The case Detective queried the COPLINK Node for anyone named (Witheld), who had ever lived at that address and found a potential suspect, but his picture didn't match. They were looking for a subject with shoulder length hair, but this potential suspect had a shaved head in a picture taken two years earlier. In January, 2007 the Detective ran the query again. Thanks to information from one of our regional information sharing partners, he found a picture of the same suspect who was arrested by Pima County Sherrifs' Deputies within the previous couple of weeks. The new booking photo showed a subject with long, shoulder length hair, instead of a shaved head. The investigation is ongoing, but the Detective is confident that a positive ID and arrest is imminent.